


Headfirst

by cherrybubblegum



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Jearmin Summer Splash 2015, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4569816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrybubblegum/pseuds/cherrybubblegum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling in love isn't as easy as it looks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Headfirst

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was part of the Jearmin Splash 2015 - a team based writing competition  
> Prompt: Baptism by Fire  
> Team: Team Canon  
> Word Count: 5036
> 
> Nothing gets blood pumping quite like confessions of love... or broken glass.

 

“Hey, Jean?” Armin’s prompt was laced with calculated indifference.

“Mmm?” Jean half-grunted in response, the sound mixing with the sounds of their boots padding on the coarse, pebbled walkway. It was late afternoon and they had already made it a few blocks away from base, far enough away now that they could no longer hear the sounds of their comrades making slow progress through the rubble. The two of them were also making pretty slow progress in this ghost-town, but Armin’s knowledge of the side-roads seemed to be helping a bit.

“Just so you know, I’m pretty sure I like you. Like, _like_ you. A crush. Infatuation. Whatever kids are calling it these days.” He said this casually and made a point of not looking in Jean’s direction, focusing his attention instead to scaling the pile of debris blocking the narrow path. Armin grabbed a crooked porch beam as he stumbled atop the mix of mortar and stone, large splinters and, presumably, what used to be the other half of the porch. He teetered only a second, then let go and got himself over the little pile that had been resting in that space wedged between the two homes for the past 6 years.

It wasn’t a _confession_. Just a statement.

When Armin didn’t hear the sounds of Jean battling his own way over the pile however, he risked a look over his shoulder. Jean was still on the other side, head slightly crooked and chin angled downward, hands on his hips and eyeing Armin with the most “sure, as if” smirk he’d ever seen.

Armin turned around proper now, hands going to his own bony hips. “What? What’s that face for?” _Just a statement._

“For starters, _Grandpa_ , I’m pretty sure the kids are calling it _having the hots for_ , and secondly you-are-so-full-of-shit Armin Arlert.” This last bit was punctuated by a bark of a laugh. He finally moved his feet forward, approaching the hazard.

“Watch out, there’s some exposed nails, I think…”

“So who put you up to it eh? I bet it was Sasha. I swear she’s been trying to get back at me for _something_ …”

Armin felt indignant. “Sasha? Jean no I’m serious. God, you’d believe I’d be coaxed into an awful joke like that?” Seeing Jean make it to the other side, Armin started walking again, continuing down the short alleyway between the broken houses.

“Awful might be a bit harsh. I mean, I had a bit of a chuckle. I think it might have just been because it’s you though.” Jean said dismissively.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Armin clearly hadn’t accomplished what he’d intended to, yet, but he was willing to let the conversation veer off course. He peered into a broken window as he passed it. He averted his eyes when he caught a glimpse of white bone. There was a surprising amount of it in Shiganshina considering Titan’s generally _ate people whole_. Lucky for their whole faction, things had been eerily quiet, with no signs of titans or shifters or anything out of the usual since their arrival arrived yesterday morning. Just a broken town. “Don’t look in there.”

“I just mean you’re not funny, y’know?”

They stepped back out into the open, emerging from the space between the two houses, and finding themselves on one of the larger streets. There was still debris everywhere –they wouldn’t have been able to drive a cart through here even if they tried. The scouting legion had to leave the few carts they had back at the gate. It was part of the reason Eren’s place was taking so long to excavate. Unfortunately with their shifter preoccupied, all the heavy lifting had to be done by hand.

“I _am so_ funny.”

Jean snorted from his place a few paces back.

“Okay. You’re right. I’m not funny.” Armin chuckled a bit to himself. “So logically that only leaves one explanation then. I was being serious.”

“Pfft as if.”

This had been way more straightforward when he’d practiced with Mikasa.

In short, Armin had realized after handfuls of terrifying experiences that he had _romantic feelings_ for Jean Kirchstein. That realization itself had been almost as terrifying as the near-death experiences themselves. And there was nothing soft in it; at its core it was a feeling of necessity, an awareness that no, Armin Arlert _could not_ handle living without this other person. It was sharp like a knife, this attraction, and it stabbed at him, reminding him how he had never intended to fall in love. It had always seemed like a bad idea. Risky. But Armin was realizing, despite his best efforts, that maybe this sort of thing couldn’t be tamed with reason.

After the numb shock and mild incredulity Armin had come to the quick conclusion that he had to let Jean know.

Eren had other ideas.

“What? Why would you do that??”

“Isn’t that the polite thing to do?” It bordered between trivial and significant, this crush. His first. In either case it seemed fair to inform the other party. That’s what friends did, wasn’t it? How could you claim to feel close to another person and then hide from them something so intimate? Armin was also very aware of the dangers of love; better to have something like this out on your sleeve than to risk someone thinking they could control you with it. And if nothing else maybe it would help dissuade Jean from getting himself into quite so many deadly situations. Armin doubted it, as their line of work dictated, but his poor nerves were hopeful.

Armin, Eren and Mikasa had been spending some idle time outside, sitting on the beams of a quaint wooden fence. The current grounds Historia had them visiting were one of the more pleasant ones in the countryside, and they were taking advantage of the sunny autumn day while they weren’t explicitly needed.

“No.” Came Mikasa’s blunt reply.

“Armin people don’t _do_ that. Confessions make people… weird.” Eren’s face twisted a bit on the last word. Armin was at least thankful Eren hadn’t made a comment about the particular target of his affections.

“A confession? Oh no. I just want to _tell_ him.”

For some reason the way Mikasa and Eren shared a split-second concerned glance from the corners of their eyes had made Armin feel he might be even more out of his element than he’d originally anticipated.

Armin was reliving that feeling again now, with Jean stubbornly reflecting his statement. He was at a loss. Why did people all seem to want to overcomplicate things like this?

“Hell Armin, won’t it be _embarrassing?”_ The way Eren had said it made it seem he was already embarrassed on Armin’s behalf.

 _Trust me, after putting a bullet through a woman’s head to save his life and then having him come out and talk to me about it_ while I literally cried next to my own vomit, _I really doubt this will be the embarrassment that kills me._ But Armin couldn’t blame Eren for not knowing all those details. Eren was nothing if not preoccupied lately.

“I don’t think so,” was all Armin had said.

Well as it turned out, Armin hadn’t been wrong –he wasn’t embarrassed. And Jean wasn’t “freaking out”, despite Eren’s predictions.

“Jean I have the hots for you, okay?” He stopped and turned around, hands raised in exasperation. “Let’s just. Yeah that’s all. I’ve been straightforward with you from the beginning I didn’t think I should stop now. Do with that information what you will. I mean, I can’t _make_ you believe me so…”

Armin ignored Jean’s peculiar expression and let his sentence fade. He turned around and made a left once he got to the main road ahead. Getting his book back was still on the day’s short-list and he wasn’t going to let a setback stop him. Armin knew he and Jean were getting close to his grandfather’s old house; he was starting to vaguely recognize things despite the disarray.

He inhaled a sharp little hiss as he finished rounding the corner. Geoffrey’s bookstore, Armin remembered how he used to love to stare into the little shop with his face pressed up against the large glass window at the front. Now the window was smashed, thousands of pieces of glass littering the street in front of it. “Watch out, there’s glass all over the place… Maybe we should have just stuck to the side streets.”

Jean, forever a few paces behind, rounded the corner. “You don’t need to keep doing that…” He mumbled.

“Hmm?” Armin was giving the shards on the road a wide burden, almost walking all the way to the other side in the process. His house wasn’t far from here; he hoped they didn’t run into much more broken glass on the way. He could see many broken windows, but most had shattered with the majority of pieces on the inside, or the glass had been blown away and scattered by the elements.

Luckily there was no more obliterated windows on this street, just rocks and overturned carts which they bypassed in silence.

Silence made Armin think, and right now he couldn’t help but wonder what Jean was thinking. He must be thinking _something,_ because now neither of them were saying anything and it certainly didn’t feel like a _comfortable_ silence, but then again they were trudging through a tragedy of a town.

Did he really think Armin had been joking?

Armin thought of all the time they’d spent together since their first mission outside the walls; it was somewhat unintentional at first, but Armin grew to seek the company even before he understood what it meant. It was the deadly experiences which clued him in to his own feelings, but that didn’t mean Armin hadn’t built up a collection of pleasant experiences also. As it turned out, Jean was every bit as genuine as his honest-guy persona tried to suggest. It was oddly endearing, and Armin had always tried to be just as honest in return. This mutual authenticity had allowed them to build up a fast friendship. For this same reason, Armin assumed that if Jean had been uncomfortable or anything, he would have just been forward about it. But Jean hadn’t even gotten as far as _believing_ Armin --much less evaluating the situation. But that just brought everything back to the oddity that Jean would even consider Armin had been joking in the first place.

Armin was thinking in circles and giving himself a headache.

Eventually he pointed to a blue house with a shingleless roof in the distance. “There it is.”

Jean had been walking quietly beside him since the streets had widened enough to forgo single-file. This seemed to snap him out of his quiet stupor. He squinted, “The blue one there?”

“Mmhmm.” Armin had faint memories of him and his family repainting all the siding one summer. Some vague figure he assumed was his father, up on a ladder. The paint was muted now, but the house still managed to stand out compared to the others.

“Shit man, was your family loaded or what?”

Armin gave him a look from the corner of his eye.

“Sorry. That was… inappropriate.”

He’d lived in one of the nicer areas of Shiganshina, up a little hill where the houses were just a little bit nicer, the roads just a little bit better kept. Armin always liked visiting Eren’s house though, because he’d lived where the houses were a bit more spread out and the fields weren’t very far away. Much better for exploring.

The spell of silence seemed to have been broken after Jean’s comment, and they had only begun tackling the hill when Jean said something again. “So okay Armin. Say I buy this, whatever-it-is. Why do you like me anyways? And for the record I was joking about the hots thing. No one says that. Please never say that again.” A wry smile.

The trek up the hill wasn’t as bad as the rest of the walk had been; a lot of the smaller debris had actually seemed to have rolled down to the bottom of the hill. Once the scattering of stone, shingles, and concrete were bypassed at the start, the little sidewalk was almost pleasant, the abundance of weeds and wildflowers growing between the stones gave the area the little splash of green Armin had thought it was missing when he was little.

Armin kept his eyes on his feet as he walked, preferring to watch the passing shrubs over the broken pieces of his old neighborhood.

The thing was, Armin had asked himself the same question Jean was asking him, tens, maybe a hundred times, if he was to be perfectly honest, in his head. And he’d not yet been able to come up with a sufficient answer. But he hardly thought replying “I have no idea” would be a polite response, so he gave his mind one more go of it.

“In the split seconds after those times I thought you or me or _both of us,_ were goners, I realized how I simply couldn’t let it happen. It’s the same with Eren and Mikasa. But with them I can rationalize it out. I mean, we’re friends. More so though, the two of them are basically my family. The only family I have left. They’d do the same thing for me. They have before, actually…” Was he rambling? “Anyways, I guess I sort had a feeling similar to that. It was only on reflection that, uh, I realized how much your companionship has meant to me this past little while.”

“Armin!” Jean’s eyes snapped decidedly in the other direction, looking properly flustered. Had he not expected a proper answer? “That’s…It’s nothing though! I mean, not us being friends but… I’m just. Uh.”

Armin smiled at Jean’s fluster. “I mean it though. Eren and Mikasa have been… distracted lately, and for good reason, but things have been sort of transient and I really do appreciate you appearing when I needed someone there.” Despite himself, Armin thought specifically of the encounter in which he was impersonating Historia. Only Jean was there to really see how disturbed Armin had been by the whole event, and Armin didn’t feel up to telling his other two friends the details afterwards. They’d all had their own concerns at the time.

“And like I said, this hasn’t happened to me before. I always thought being attracted to someone meant –Jean what’s with that face?” Armin laughed nervously. Jean’s face was scrunched up into an uncomfortable looking expression and his skin was blotching pink.

“Sorry! No keep going –I’m just. Damn I’m just not used to so much casual flattery! _Attracted_. Wow.” He ran a hand through his hair and managed to unscrunch his face a bit, probably for Armin’s benefit.

“I… I don’t know how else to say it? Anyways, I always thought it would involve a lot of awkward moments, nice gestures, hand holding and, I dunno, fluttering hearts? Does that happen? Flirting or something? Do people still do that? But what I got instead was both of us nearly eaten, at least _twice_ , you seeing me at probably my most humiliated, and a literal bullet into a woman’s head.” It had taken a long time for Armin to be able to mention that last one somewhat casually in conversation, and he knew it would always feel a little bit sticky and bitter on his tongue. “I’d always assumed falling in love –Jean, your face! –would feel softer. Squishy. Mmm… warm? Instead I felt like my 3DMG hook missed its target and I fell into 50 feet of tangled branches to the floor below. Headfirst.” Armin thought it best he skip over the literal sleepless nights, tears and vomit that passed in the process, although they all lived in so little privacy Jean was at least been somewhat aware of all that anyways.

They’d reached his house. The front door was on the ground a handful of feet away, so they had no resistance getting in. All things considered, it wasn’t as bad as many of the other homes closer to the wall. Broken windows, and one side of the roofing was in disarray; shingles were littered all over the front and on the street, mixing with those from the other houses. Armin noted the front garden he and his grandfather had tended was now in an uproarious state of uncontrolled growth. Bees were humming around the colourful wildflower petals, seemingly oblivious to the mess of everything around them.

They both stood awkwardly outside the entranceway for a moment. There seemed to be a mutual agreement to put their conversation on hold so Armin took the first steps inside. It was dirty; dirt and dust covered everything, and there were traces of small animals having made their home here at one point or another. But aside from that and the few pieces of toppled over furniture, it looked almost as Armin remembered it. He tried not to think about it too much as he went towards the stairs. Somehow everything being mostly intact was sadder than if the house had been destroyed altogether.

“Let me go first, just in case there are any weakened boards.” Armin was stepping cautiously on each step, grip tight on the railing.

“You know, I always thought the heavier person was supposed to be the one going first in situations like these…” Jean let him continue regardless.

In contrast to the gaping entrance downstairs, the solid wooden door to Armin’s bedroom was closed. This made the hallway itself rather dark, as none of the other bedrooms had managed to keep their doors open either, preventing any natural light from getting in from the bedrooms.

Armin turned the nob and gave the door a light push, but it remained firm. “Weird…” He tried again, this time giving the solid wood a solid shove with his shoulder. Nothing.

“Here, let me try.” Jean took Armin’s place, but didn’t bother with a doorknob and went straight to shoving at it with his shoulder as Armin had done. _Thump. Thump. Thump thump thump._ “’The hell is this?”

Armin sat himself down at the top of the stairs, suddenly weary. He’d try again in a minute or two. “Something probably fell over on the other side in front of the door. Or maybe the hinges are broken.”

“Or both.” Jean plopped himself down roughly on the top stair beside Armin.

Silence. Jean was tracing his finger in the years of dust that had settled on the floor near his feet.

“Should I say sorry?”

Armin started to laugh but it quickly turned into a cough as he inhaled the dust from the air into his lungs. “I’m assuming you aren’t talking about my door? Unless you’re somehow responsible for blocking it?” Jean continued staring moodily ahead. “Jean of course you don’t need to say sorry. I mean I’m more or less at ease with it now. Maybe it’s a temporary thing? I don’t know how these ‘crush’ things work. But you know, if you want to spare my nerves a bit, you could be more considerate before putting yourself in a life-threatening situation again?”

“Are you sure? You look pretty cool when you’re scared shitless and saving my ass…” This was said in such grim seriousness, Armin had to resist the urge to chuckle again.

“Maybe I should be thanking you, in fact. It made me realize that maybe I’m not such a coward after all.” Armin stood up and dusted off his pants. He wanted to give the door another try. Jean followed his example and stood up also.

“You were never a coward though. Not really. Plus everything’s all relative, you know? I mean being a coward during the reign of the titan attacks basically would make you a badass during peace-times. Me? I was a coward even when things were fine. Hell, I’ve wanted to be in the police for basically forever –just in case, right?”

“But you’re not in the police. _You’re here_. Speaking of which, give me a hand with this door again? We didn’t come all this way just to be stopped by my bedroom door.”

They both tried what they’d done before, this time in unison, heaving on their shoulders pressed up against the door.

“Eughhhh,” Jean let out an exasperated groan when the door remained as stubborn as ever. “This isn’t working. We’re just going to have to time it right, ‘n slam into it as hard as we can.”

“But what if my window shattered or something? There might be a huge gaping hole in the floor for all we know.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing you’re still here to protect me, eh?”

For some reason this made Armin feel more embarrassed than the rest of the day’s conversations. “What? Sure. Right. Okay,” he mumbled stupidly, trying to mentally ward off the blush he could feel creeping onto his cheeks.

They pushed their shoulders up against the door again, lightly this time, waiting, as Jean gave them a count.

“Three… two… one…!” Talking half a step back they shoved into the oak as hard as they could –Armin could feel the dull pain in his already tender shoulder for a hard second before the sound of creaking wood and some sort of scraping sound left them flying into the space beyond the door.

Jean and Armin’s sounds of surprise mixed as they landed unceremoniously –Jean ending up sprawled over Armin’s old overturned armoir (which Armin suspected had been blocking the door moments ago, and had now slid a few feet away, ultimately allowing the door to swing open), and Armin’s head just inches from concussing into one of the bedposts from his comparatively undisturbed four-poster bed.

Armin stayed where he was and rested his forehead against the wooden floor panels (no gaping holes, thankfully) for a moment. “You alive?” He could see the bottoms of Jean’s boots through his bangs. Jean’s other half was awkwardly bent over the other side of the dark wood.

“Uh. Yeah. Yep.”

Getting up to his knees Armin looked around. It was unsettling, being in his room again. His window had been broken and along with his armoir one of his book shelves had also tipped over, sprawling moldy pages everywhere. But what was most unsettling were all the childish things still littered everywhere; boxes and boxes of boardgames, their titles hard to read from mildew, a chipped but still colourful box in the corner Armin knew would still have his old toys in it. Some wax crayons were strewn across his floor. And the one spot on the wall that was designated for tracking his height, a date written in his grandfather’s scratchy hand near each tick. In the handful of years Armin had thoroughly forgotten he’d been only a child.

Thankfully Armin hadn’t kept his special book on the bookshelf for it to sit exposed. He dipped his head under the bed and got down on his belly (it hadn’t always been this cramped, had it?) and felt around for the little metal lever – _there_. He heard a click and lifted the little hidden panel up. It probably wasn’t necessary, illegal or not, but Armin had begged his grandfather for a little secret space like this because honestly it make 9 year-old Armin feel cool. Eren at least, had been very impressed.

He felt the familiar edge of the pages. “Ah!” Suddenly Armin felt excited, anxious. He pulled it out and inched his way back from under his bed, fighting the urge to sneeze in the dust that got stirred. “Jean I found it! …Jean?” Armin noticed Jean was still positioned over the armoir. He appeared to be examining something.

“Okay don’t freak out, but do you have any gauze on you?” He finally propped himself up and out of his awkward sprawled position. He raised his hands feebly. They were—

“Fuck! Jean, why didn’t you say anything?” A cold sweat rushed over Armin and he dropped the book with a dull thud. Jean’s hands were wet with a dark red layer of blood. Blood that was still patiently dripping down his wrists and onto the floor. Armin saw now the bloody handprints in the shards of glass on the other side of the armoir by the window. Jean must have tried stopping his fall only to have his hands cut by the tiny shards.

“I’m sorry.” Jean looked doleful, his eyes watching Armin with an apology which mimicked the verbal one.

“Here, sit up. Stick out your hands for me?” Armin fumbled at his belt for his waterskin. “And why would you say sorry?” He unhooked it and began pouring what was left over Jean’s outstretched hands. The pink water puddled between them at their knees.

“I dunno. Maybe because you just finished telling me how terrible and stressed you saving my ass had been. And then you still manage to be all flattering and shit and then I go headfirst into a pile of glass like an idiot. Maybe?”

“I think there might have been a misunderstanding then.” Armin tried his best at a reassuring smile as he held on to Jean’s wrists and brought the hands closer for inspection. Luckily the window (or lack of) behind them allowed for good lighting. “Here I’m just going to pull these two little pieces out…” Two pointy shards could be seen sticking out of his left palm. There might be more, but they would just have to wait until they were back at camp to have someone properly take care of him then.

Jean hissed when Armin eased them out. Small droplets of blood were already forming in their place.

“What a mess…” Armin reached for his small pocket-knife and unsheathed it, and quickly cut a long strip out of his heavy cloak.

“Armin! Aww… your new uniform…”

“I’m sure I’ll get over it.” Armin said lightly through a tight jaw as he tried to remember how to properly tie a bandage. Hands were an awkward shape and honestly he probably would have been better off cutting his shirt; the outerwear was too waterproof and didn’t want to absorb the blood very well.

Finished, Armin released Jean’s bandaged hands only to have them grasp his own a second after.

“Armin… your hands are shaking.”

Jean was holding his palms gently against his fingers, thumbs resting just behind Armin’s knuckles. There was a soft concern in his voice.

Armin chuckled, a little awkward. “Yeah. I told you, you do that to me sometimes.” Armin let him hold onto his hands a little longer. When Jean didn’t let go, Armin gave him a questioning look. The other’s eyes lifted their concerned gaze from their spot on their hands to meet Armin’s with a sort of deliberateness.

“Jean, what…”

“Holding hands.”

Suddenly Armin’s hands felt like they were burning, brushed up against Jean’s bandaged digits. “Hmm?” It came out as a questioning squeak.

“That’s what you said, right? Holding hands… what else? Fluttering heart?” Jean adjusted his grip and maneuvered one of Armin’s hand to rest against his chest. “Wait, is hammering the same as fluttering?” Sure enough, the pounding was felt right through Jean’s jacket. Jean mimicked the action with his other hand, pressing it against Armin’s chest. Armin could feel the vibrations of his own heart, and he was pretty sure Jean could too.

A part of Armin wanted to mention it was likely just an effect of the adrenaline from the incident with the glass, but a wiser part of him decided that it was probably beside the point and so he kept his mouth shut.

They stayed like that, a few seconds which felt somehow longer than the whole walk here, hands resting against each other’s hearts before they simultaneously let their hands drop gently into their laps. “I could try flirting too, if you want, but I’ve long since given _that_ up… I’m still not sure if it’s been lack of perception on your part, or lack of skill on mine, but…” Jean’s sentence tapered off, allowing Armin’s brain a moment to catch up.

“Jean. Jean! You --?” There seemed to be a communication error between his mind and his mouth, so Armin was counting on Jean to understand his question.

Luckily their weeks of companionship seemed to help fill in the gaps. “Maybe. Probably. Okay yes. You can only be saved so many times before it starts to get to you, you know? And what can I say, I love a man with a sense of humour.”

“But… why didn’t you say anything!” Armin was incredulous. It put the afternoon’s long conversation into a ridiculous angle.

“Because people don’t _do_ that Armin! Most people will just drop tiny hints all over the place and hope the other person catches on. But you seem to have a certain gift for ignorance in this one particular regard. Plus I didn’t believe you remember? I had to really cover my ass first. For all I knew you’d caught on and were, I dunno, making fun of me or something!” Jean raised his hands over his head in exasperation, ends of his impromptu bandages wiggling comically with the movement.

Something in Armin cracked then, and he bubbled up with laughter. He doubled over in a fit of chuckles, the happy and bizarre conclusion making him feel some kind of emotion he might not have felt since he’d last been sleeping in this room. When he finally lifted his head again, Jean was grinning at him, looking both mildly shocked and a little too pleased with himself.

“You okay?”

Still beaming, all Armin could do was shrug at the simple question.

“If we head back with you grinning like that, the captain’s gonna think you went back home and lost it.”

Armin thought he could get used to this though, and maybe everyone else should too.

“Well then, let’s take our time. I have an awfully good page-turner for us to flip through in the meantime.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who voted/ranked! The contest is now over but feel free to comment anyways~
> 
> AU fic for this prompt is here: archiveofourown.org/works/4577052


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